Rose Gold

Back before we owned our house, before we'd even seen it in person, actually, we were browsing online, trying to decide, via a few (usually pretty lame) photos, which homes on the market inspired us enough to make an appointment to walk through. We came across this one house that appeared to... could this be right? Is there a wall-sized *window* in that shower? Looking...outside?! We'd been stuck in a perpetual loop for a long while at this point. Well over eighteen months of looking at houses that ranged from "just not quite right" for this reason or that, all the way to "it would be better for this house if someone accidentally dropped a lit match on their way out the door and left it a heap of burning embers." Long story short, despite the weird window situation, we decided to see what the house looked like in living color. We've been living here for closing in on two years now.

Two years. The time... well, I don't have to tell you.

Back to that window. That strange, curious window...

...that somehow became one of my favorite things, like, ever. It is far from weird or uncomfortable. There is, indeed, a wall-sized window in the master shower that looks outside. But it looks out onto a private patio with a high security fence, *not* across my backyard and into the behind-us neighbors' breakfast nook or any other equally awkward location. I cannot even begin to explain the peaceful sanctuary of showering entirely by soft, natural morning light. How it wakes me up, slowly and gently. I breathe deeply and start the day feeling peaceful.

Even though I fell rapidly and completely in love with this window, it held another surprise. One I wouldn't discover for nearly a year. If time is fleeting -- and surely, it is -- then time is also fluid. The days stretch longer and contract shorter with the revolving seasons. The weather changes the intensity of the light. You look up at a sunset and before you can turn away, it's already changed in a thousand glorious ways.

In mid December, the sun rises just after seven in the morning. In the half hour or so before the sun raises its fiery orange face to illuminate the earth, the light begins to warm in anticipation. From the cool blues of overnight is born this...glow. And for just a few minutes, so brief that if you aren't waiting for it, you'll miss it, that entire patio garden is bathed in the most stunningly beautiful light I have ever seen. It reflects off the creamy fence and is nothing short of magical, a color I can only describe as "rose gold."

I don't have a single photograph of it. It happens exclusively at the time of day when I am physically in the shower -- where, for several reasons, my camera dares not travel -- and the gift of it depends on the whims of Mother Nature, But for a few short weeks, the wonders of this world align to christen a few of my mornings with an exquisite beauty so breathtaking that I cannot help to exhale a prayer of awe-filled thanks.